Super Punch: March 2008

Monday, March 31, 2008

Lego monster

The Reds are hosting a contest that's impossible to win

The Cincinnati Reds are hosting a promotion this year that will award one lucky fan with a brand new truck if any particular Red happens to hit the truck with a home run. The truck is perched in center field, 500 feet away. It's a neat promotion. Except that it's physically impossible for anyone to hit the truck.

Link.

Street Art: Making a chain link fence beautiful

See video of the installation here (click "Think Beauty"). Via these sites.

Cosplay: Midna from Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess

Link. Via.

Install a miniature parallel world on your ceiling

Clever interior decorating idea from Ji Lee. Click through for a closeup. Via.

WSJ writer discovers his children prefer a five-year-old computer to a One Laptop Per Child laptop

That was the rub: Out of the box, the XO lags behind in its ability to browse today's Web in all its multimedia glory. Even after I upgraded the XO with Flash software, it didn't smoothly or quickly play animations or videos -- the screen tended to jump around, games stalled while loading, video clips stuttered so much they were unwatchable. That ruled out most online video and Web-based games -- no videos on YouTube, no "Flight of the Hamsters" game on Cartoon Network's site, which even our five-year-old desktop PC can handle.

Link.

Seems like it was just last week that Yves Behar won a design award for the device.

The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

Publisher's Weekly:

The author of Jane Eyre plays sleuth in this enchanting historical from Rowland, acclaimed for her mystery series set in 17th-century Japan (The Snow Empress, etc.). After the instant success of Jane Eyre and the lesser success of her two sisters' novels, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, Charlotte Brontë receives a letter from her publisher, George Smith, accusing her of breach of contract: Smith believes the same author penned all three novels, as they each appeared under a pseudonym with the surname Bell. On the train from Haworth to London to meet Smith, Charlotte and sister Anne encounter Isabel White, a mysterious girl who, once in London, is murdered. Charlotte becomes ensnared in a case involving a revenge plot orchestrated by an arch villain shaded with old school orientalism. Brontë fans will delight in Rowland's portrait of Charlotte, who closely parallels Jane both in personality and station. The men playing opposite Charlotte often echo the character of Edward Rochester, lending an enticing will-they, won't-they tension to the proceedings.

The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

Watchmen Vietnam War Army Patch

Found here. Apparently a bit of swag given to people who worked on the movie.

*Previously: Awesome U.S. Military Patches.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

How do you illustrate silence?

In December 2001, Marvel experimented with the "'Nuff Said" event, in which comic books featured little to no dialogue. The results received some criticism, although I enjoyed Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's New X-Men #121, which revealed the origin of Professor X's sister. So, how did the cover artists try to get the silent concept across?

Well, some went the obvious route:

Some tried something a little more subtle:

Some illustrated the exact opposite:

And some pretended it wasn't happening:

But the cover of Peter Parker: Spiderman # 38 was definitely my favorite:

Covers found here, here, and here.

Inflatable street art by Joshua Allen Harris

Fast forward 35 seconds in this video of "Air Bear"

And this video shows "Street Zoo"

A lot more pleasant than the last street art I mentioned. Via.

Foam cups crushed to the size of thimbles by ocean pressure

Last August, as a team at the North Pole prepared to plunge more than two miles to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, some of the dozens of specialists who staged the dive engaged in a time-honored ritual: drawing on foam cups, decorating more than 100 of them.

The cups were then gingerly sent into the deep. During the historic dive, led by Russian scientists, the pressure of the surrounding water crushed the cups to the size of thimbles, also squeezing their whimsies of writing and drawing.

Afterward, the tiny cups became instant mementoes of the polar dive, offering striking proof of the descent into an unfamiliar zone and silent testimony to the crushing power of plain old water.

Photos here.

Robot Bride and Groom Wedding Cake Topper

From the Builder's Studio. It's currently on sale in this Etsy store. I previously interviewed its creator.

Slave Leia Amigurumi

Just one of many Star Wars amigurumi figures by Geek Central Station:

Click here to see more in the Flickr gallery or go here for the Etsy shop, which currently has Han and Chewie on sale and also features Lord of the Rings figures.

*Update: There's an interview with the artist here.

Interactive retrospective of Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad magazine

Here's the very cool interactive retrospective.

Here's a NY Times article about Jaffee, who is 87 and still creating fold-ins.

Relatedly, there's some cool fold-in effects starting approximately 30 seconds into Beck's video for "Girl"

Via.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Iron Man figurines available with Slurpees at 7-Eleven

Photos here.

How To: Refill a disposable Brita filter

Link.

(Very Doable) Dr. Manhattan Papercraft

Download the template toward the bottom of this page.

*Elsewhere: Dr. Manhattan Marvel Legends style action figure, Dr. Manhattan custom Lego minifig.

Homemade Scrump Plush (Lilo & Stitch)

As I've mentioned before, Lilo & Stitch is easily my favorite Disney cartoon. Lilo carries around a deformed little stuffed animal she made herself called Scrump. Raúl Villanueva teamed up with his wife to make one for their daughter.

*See also: Burn-E paper toy.

*Buy Scrump toys at eBay.

Sidewalk Psychiatry

Some jerk is messing with people's heads in New York by spraying ominous looking comments on city streets:

I wonder how many people were having perfectly nice days until they read the comments. More here. Via.

How To: Make Tetris Fridge Magnets

Instructions here. Via.

Friday, March 28, 2008

X-Files 2 Movie Poster

Found here.

(My all time favorite X-Files episode was the one with Luke Wilson.)

10 dumbest action figures

Well, 10 needless figures in toy lines. These are actually all pretty old. I'm sure someone could come up with a more recent list. Build-A-Figure Blob comes to mind. Was anyone buying a figure just for the chance to build him? Notice: no bids.

Photo of Desert Rat Bertie

Larger version here.

(By the way, the comic book this terrific toy is based on is not good.)

Now this is how you park cars

Larger version here.

Grocery stores have it exactly backward

They should provide a special lane and extra service to carts overflowing with items. Good idea found here.

10 least popular jerseys from the past 10 years

That's gotta hurt.

*Previously: A Premier League soccer player buys lots of his own jerseys to seem more popular.

CBS reporters were with Clinton during the non-dangerous Bosnia landing

So why'd it take months for someone to challenge Clinton's claim to have landed under sniper fire? Link.

Relatedly, a terrific Freudian slip by one of Clinton's advisers.

*Previously: Video proves Clinton WAS in grave danger during the Bosnia trip.

Funny: How to read between the lines in a newspaper article

The Post:

Microsoft has been so cagey about the candidates it plans to nominate to Yahoo!'s board that speculation is mounting that the software giant actually doesn't have anyone lined up.

The invisible footnote: Our once-cooperative sources at Microsoft don't see any reason to keep us updated on negotiations. Here's a reason: Talk or we'll make up things and call it "speculation." We won't make up nice things.

Keep reading.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Great Star Wars Ad: Use only in case of Sith

Click through to see it lit up. Via.

Spike sure is spending a lot of money advertising old movies.

The top WNBA players are playing for some shady rich Russian

and making big money and being treated like princesses. But it's not all fun:

Taurasi joined her on the Dynamo roster two winters ago, reuniting the two friends from their UConn days. Still, because of difficulties with the coaches and a brutally cold winter, that 2005-06 season was so unpleasant it wore down even relentlessly upbeat Taurasi. She compares it to the episode of "Married With Children" when the Bundys travel to Lower Uncton, an English town living under a constant dark cloud. Lower Uncton became her code for anything that went wrong during the season.

"My goal was to make one Russian smile a day -- one Russian," she said. "That lasted a couple days and I gave up."

Link.

(I loved the Bundy's trip to England.)

Video proves Clinton WAS in grave danger during the Bosnia trip

Via.

Funny sign: "Last chiropractor 'til freeway"

Photo.

The Philippines to get its own version of Playboy...

without nudity.

*Previously: Philippines basketball teams can have one foreigner each, no taller than 6'6''.

*Buy vintage Playboy memorabilia at eBay.

Obama falsely claims he was conceived during the Selma marches

He says his parents were so moved by the freedom marches that they conceived him. Alas, he was already three years old at the time. Link.

A US company is selling shoddy ammunition to the Afghanistan government

Shoddy might be generous:

Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

The company is run by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur. Link.

Detailed discussion of how much Gawker bloggers get paid

Link.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Video: Tron sweded

Tron
Uploaded by freres-hueon

Via.

LA Time's report on P. Diddy being involved in the Tupac shooting was based on a hoax

D'oh.

Funny: Boy embarrassed to use father's pink DS draws himself one on a folded piece of paper

Link.

Jones Soda to feature LOLCats on their soda labels

Create a label for the contest here. Via.

Wikipedia's list of sexually active popes

For example, Pope John XII (955–963) "was said to have turned the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano into a brothel and was accused of adultery, fornication, and incest." Link. Via.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Lego Futurama

Lots of photos here. Via.

Holographic sea monster

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this water fountain/light show thing to promote the movie The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep was way cooler than the actual movie.

Via.

Advance Wars Papercraft

Lots of Advance Wars paper toys. Via.

Warning, bamboo is taking over the world

So says the WSJ:

So Mr. Bothwell whacked the stand with a machete. It grew back. He bought a pickax and tried digging up the roots, a process that traced a 30-foot arc across his once-pristine lawn. One month and two broken shovels later, he rented a Bobcat minibulldozer and a big metal trash bin, acquired 14 gallons of poison and bought 24 cubic yards of dirt to fill the resulting hole. Total approximate cost: $1,500.

One year later, a single shoot appeared. "It gave me ... the final salute." Mr. Bothwell says. "I was like, 'Mother of God.' "

Scary: Four foot long rabbit

Photo. Via.

"Animated" Transformers toys are now on sale

Pictured are Bulkhead and the Veritech-style Starscream. The entire set is available at Hasbro's shop.

Monday, March 24, 2008

WWE Vinyl Toys

Mankind and The Undertaker are just two of the upcoming WWE Vinyl Aggression toys.

Nendoroid Death Note Vinyl Figures

Made by the Good Smile Company, these poseable little figurines are loaded with ominous personality. They're from a series called Death Note and are on sale here and here.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

DC Comic Pulp Heroes Cover Gallery

Back in 1997, DC Comics featured painted pulp-style covers on all of its annuals and called the event "Pulp Heroes." I wish this had become an annual event. I've done my best to gather an image of every issue in the series, along with links to the cover artist's site. Where available, I also linked to a higher res image of the cover. If you can recommend a better image, let me know.